So call me a pagan... 4

Okay- I thought the next two chapters of "Pagan Christianity?" would be ones I could wholeheartedly get behind, being as they are, critiques of the evangelical order of worship and sermon- two things that Evergreen does fairly differently than your standard evergreen church (see here for a run down on a typical evergreen morning)

But, alas... twas not to be.

Chapter three is a fairly long treatise on the origins of the "order of worship." You know,
Hymns/singing
Scripture Reading
Choir music
Pastoral prayer
Sermon
Prayer
Offering
Benediction.

Viola takes offense at this. "You can scour the Bible from beginning to end, and you will never find anything that remotely resembles our order of worship. This is because the first-century Christians knew no such thing" (pg 50)

You know, the further I get in this book, the more Viola sounds like someone who buys the Regulative Principle. He says he doesn't, but to be honest, he sure talks like he does.

Anyway, He contrasts the "perfunctory", "prescribed", "ironclad" worship order of the modern church this way: "The meetings of the early church were marked by every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom, vibrancy, and open participation."
Sounds wonderful. Since Viola probably doesn't have a time machine or magic mirror that allows him to view the worship services of two thousand years ago, we have to ask where, biblically, is this picture drawn from? He cites two Scriptures: 1 Cor 14:1-33 and Hebrews 10:25.

Hebrews 10:25 says this: "And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near."
Okay...

How about 1 Cor 14? This one kind of makes me chuckle a bit. The passage Viola cites consists of verses 1-33.
Verses 1-25 are instructions on tongues/prophecy that really could apply in a number of different  ecclesiastical scenarios. It's vs 26 that I think Viola is hanging his hat on: "Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you."

See, I think that describes a lot of churches that even have an "order of service." But maybe  a different translation?  The NIV says "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."
The rest of the verses Viola cites give a lot of boundaries- no more than two or three speaking in tongues, and not at all if there's no interpreter. Two or three may prophesy. Why does Paul give these very specific instructions? "Because God is not a god of disorder, but of peace, as in all the meetings of God's holy people."

Now... Viola's description of the meeting as "marked by every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom, vibrancy, and open participation", as well as his argument against orders of worship and sermons rest on this passage as well as his argument regarding the "pagan" origins of such things as sermons (we'll get to that probably Monday).

Not to put too fine a point on it, but he fails to persuade.

The idea that you can get "marked by every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom, vibrancy, and open participation" from 1 Cor 14 and that this is necessarily at odds with having any kind of an order of worship or a sermon is just poppycock.

1st- the description "every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom, vibrancy, and open participation" is a big stretch from 1 Cor 14. You'll notice that Viola ends the cited passage at vs 33. Why?
Because VS 34 says this: "Women should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says. If they have any questions, they should ask their husbands at home, for it is improper for women to speak in church meetings."

Hmm... Maybe not quite EVERY member, freedom and open-participation...
Now- there are a number of ways to read this passage, including a culturally-bound , contextualized command that really doesn't bind us today. Also, it's apparent from other verses that women did pray and prophecy during the meeting.

But here's the thing- You kind of HAVE to leave off those verses if you are going to try to describe the early church's meetings as "every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom, vibrancy, and open participation."

Now let me be clear- I want to see A LOT more of what Viola is describing in the American Church.  I think it's a shame that we do church in such a way that people can't ask questions, that the same people lead from the front to largely passive audiences week after week. I've got no beef with diagnosing that as unhealthy.

But.

Viola's constant assertion that services being "officiated and directed by a clergyman... mak[ing] the sermon central" is "unbiblical" and that "the Protestant order of worship strangles the headship of Jesus Christ" really overplays the hand. He ends chapter 3 with a description of an "open" service.. remember- if you have an order of service, according to this chapter your worship is in all likelihood  "highly perfunctory", "highly mechanical", "highly predictable" "without variety and spontaneity" and so "shamefully boring."

But open meetings, of the kind that Viola has participated in for 20 years now are described this way: "Such meetings are marked by incredible variety. They are not bound to a one-man, pulpit dominated pattern of worship. There is a great deal of spontaneity, creativity, and freshness. The overarching hallmark of these meetings is the visible headship of Christ and the free  yet orderly functioning of the body of Christ."

Well, shoot. That sure seems like a pretty clear choice to me!

And you know what, if Viola left it at description (even obviously biased, blanket-statement descriptions that don't nearly capture the truth of worship in churches all over America that is anything but "highly perfunctory", "highly mechanical", "highly predictable" "without variety and spontaneity" and so "shamefully boring") I'd have no beef with him.

But he can't. 

"The New Testament is not silent with respect to how we Christians are to meet. Shall we therefore, opt for man's tradition when it clearly runs contrary to God's thought for His church? Shall we continue to undermine the functioning headship of Christ for the sake of our sacrosanct liturgy?" (pg 79)

Here again is the persistent implication that Viola's model of open-meetings is the right, true, and truly spiritual one. All the rest of us are literally undermining the headship of Jesus with our orders of service and opting for "man's tradition" over "God's thought" for His church.

And all that from "Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you."

Wow.

Again, I sympathize with much of what's at the heart of this. I think our current, standard practices in church DO cause passivity, DON'T allow enough participation and need to be rethought. But I don't think you need to declare that anything other than the open-meeting, free-form style Viola is describing is illegitimate.

Our sermon/discussion is led by one of the elders, who has prepared a message, usually based on/flowing out of a biblical text. During the sermon, there are multiple open-ended questions asked and a good amount of time given for people to respond. It’s not uncommon for people to interrupt and ask questions.
And at the end of every morning, we always ask: What do you-all want to say? What questions or comments do you have? What does this bring up for you?
We have a teaching team of 7, currently. Others regularly are involved in leading us in worship, praying, Scripture, creating art, creating experiential elements for the gathering…

We have a rhythm to what we do... it's not simply us sitting together in the room hoping someone starts us off. But neither is it so locked down that people can't make comments, ask questions and even disagree with the one leading the discussion. Are we "undermining the headship of Christ?" Or are we recognizing that even in the midst of a whole community of priests who have voices deserving to be heard, "He (Jesus) personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ" and that part of where that works itself out is in the worship gathering of the community?

The either/or mentality and the constant denigrating of all but one model throughout Pagan Christianity is driving me absolutely batty.

UPDATE:

The hardback version of the book has been (wisely) amended. It no longer reads "the church in its contemporary, institutional, form has neither a biblical nor historical right to exist" but rather has been amended to read "We are also making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does."

Still a pretty big overstatement, but a good editing call, nonetheless.

Comments

[grace]

Bob,
It sounds like you guys are doing a great job of incorporating the gifts and expressions of many members in your gatherings and of encouraging participation. In light of that, I am curious why you identify yourself with the rigidly ordered service that Frank describes instead of the service that allows more freedom of expression.

[Bob Hyatt]

Hey Grace-

I do and I don't.
What gets my goat is the argument that anything but the open-meeting Frank is describing fits the "biblical" pattern.
My problem with that is that I think it's possible to do something that's both ordered and participatory, that gives everyone a chance to speak, but still makes use of the teaching gifts of those gifted and called to shepherd and equip the body- namely the elders.

All in all, it's not any one thing he's saying- it's the whole package- calling pastors the biggest impediment to God's purpose in the world, asking what right churches have to do things any other way than the way he sees it, insisting that paying people to be free to serve the body in and of itself sets up a "clergy-laity" divide...

The whole thing smacks of fundamentalism. True, a fundamentalism bent towards a certain model of house church, but still...

But when he critiques pastors who stand in the pulpit and say "We are doing things the BIBLE way!" I say that sounds strangely like what I am reading in this very book.

[josh]

we did the podcast with frank today and he talked a bit about the editing process. and talked about how much tamer this version is in comparison to the first. are you reading the first edition?

anyway . . . i asked some of your questions about prescriptive/descriptive. he actually said this was the first book in a series and the next one will be almost entirely dedicated to resolving that question.

i got a real nice feeling from talking to him. i don't think he's as bas as everyone is making him out to be. for whats it worth. i'll send you a link to the podcast when it goes live (sunday?). i'm also thinking about going to the sustainable faith deal so hopefully i'll be able to spend more than 30 minutes talking about these proposals.

[Bob Hyatt]

Hey!

I'm reading the 2008 edition they sent me- it's being edited further, I understand, before final printing- probably due to some of the early pushback :)

Let me be clear though- I don't think Viola or barna are "bad" or evil or even wrong. I think they over-reach, are incautious and make too much of too little (the biblical evidence for "their" way of doing church vis a vis the "institutional" way).

I'm with Len: "In the end, I wish this book would go away. No disrespect to Frank, George... I’m not convinced that polemic is all that helpful within this conversation around the gospel and culture. I would rather have careful and respectful dialogue. I fear that the approach Frank and George have taken, broad and sweeping statements.. will only create bad feelings and division."

[Bob Hyatt]

Oh- and don't anyone kid yourself. I have a feeling that Guys like Barna and Viola don't mind controversy around a new book release AT ALL.

In fact, I think you should all buy it (and read it). Just don't "buy it"... if you know what I mean. :)

[Pistol Pete]

No doubt we can become too rigid in our order of worship. But, again, it seems Viola himself is looking for a rigid Biblical model to prescribe for us misguided churchy folk today. Worship throughout Scripture evolved to meet the needs of the people at a particular time, in a particular place, given a particular culture.

I think there are plenty of signs we are appropriately adapting worship to meet the needs of our culture. Visual projections. Drama. Shorter sermons. Testimonies. Special music that expresses personal faith.

Viola should get out and visit more churches, especially growing ones.

[John L]

Bob, I'm reading your comments, and following the many blogs reviewing PC, with great interest. I reviewed the pre-Barna edition of this book in August and found it in serious need of editing - but - it did offer numerous insights that seem an important contribution to today's 'ecclesial conversation.'

Viola's tone doesn't bother me as much as you, but I did note in my own review that he could use a tad more grace. Of course, we all could.

On balance, I'm happy that many people are engaging these important ideas (Hirsch, Cole, Fitch...). But the fact remains, we really don't know that much about the details of 1c church gatherings. A scholarly book written by someone in your neighborhood ("House Church & Mission") makes this crystal clear.

I love you and Len, but disagree that the "book should go away." I resonate more with Jon Zens' careful endorsement - a scholar who left the "clergy system" in 1983 "precisely because of the very things Frank and George unfold in the book."

Len's right, however... we probably haven't defined "institutional church" clearly enough to be attacking it (!). We end up critiquing a vaporous idea. Viola paints with a broad brush, and could have spent more time parsing greater detail. Apparently he has another book in the works which attempts to do just that.

Anyway, I'm convinced that many of the issues Viola presents are key to a healthy ecclesia. Where our traditions don't adequately reflect the heart of Christ, there is room for critique.

Keep up the great review, Bob. Despite its many shortcomings, I do think PC will, over time, have an enormous and positive impact on the Church.

[Matybigfro]

I haven't read the book but have read some reviews and the responses to criticisms on franks website

I wonder weather the emerging church isn't really the place frank is targeting his book. From what I’ve read its aimed more at those who have been lambasting those moving to house church forms as umbilical and the tone that I’ve picked up on is more the defensive tone of a pastor someone defending those in a movement their associated who have been labelled unbiblical for leaving institutional forms and so turning the label on its head.